Hachette Australia, along with Hannah Richell and in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Simpsons Solicitors, is delighted to announce Monique Ivankovič Marani as the recipient of the 2025 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.

Marani is a Croatian Australian writer and theatre-maker whose winning Richell Prize entry, The Sweeter, has also been awarded Highly Commended Second Place in the AAWP Chapter One Award. This year’s judging panel praised the work for its literary skill and powerful storytelling, calling it ‘confident, compelling storytelling from an exciting emerging writer’.

Set between Bosnia and Australia in the 1990s, The Sweeter follows fifteen-year-old Nadalina, who lives with her ex-soldier father in a decaying apartment block on the outskirts of postwar Mostar. Her mother – once the star of an abandoned Yugoslav soap pilot – has died by suicide, and Nadalina is learning to survive in a violent, male-dominated world. When an Australian journalist contacts her father, a fragile thread of possibility appears, offering Nadalina hope of escape. But she soon discovers that hope and reality rarely align.

Marani says of the win, ‘Language has always undone me. I’ve been obsessed – delighted, maddened, changed by it – for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are not of moments themselves, but of trying to articulate them, to order them. Writing for me, simply, has never been a choice so much as a compulsion: a way to assemble coherence from apparently disjointed events. Receiving the 2025 Richell Prize is a rare gift – not only for what it offers me as an artist, but for what it represents in our broader literary ecosystem. In a publishing landscape so often dictated by urgency and commerce, since its inception the Richell Prize has stood apart in its uncommon devotion to patience and its unwavering faith in emerging voices. What I appreciate most about the Richell is its willingness to trust in potential, in a story’s earliest sparks, and perhaps the most endangered of artistic and human resources: time. Writing, after all, is an art that resists haste. The Richell Prize, in its devotion to emerging writers without a complete manuscript, has distinguished itself through its understanding of this principle: born of generosity, mentorship, and the belief that emerging voices too deserve not just recognition but real, sustained support. I want to express my deepest gratitude to the Richell Prize judges and the team for their faith in my work, and for the extraordinary care they bring to nurturing new voices. To my fellow writers on the shortlist and longlist – congratulations. It is an honour to stand among you. My heartfelt thanks also to Hachette Australia and the Richell family for their enduring commitment to this prize, established in memory of Matt Richell – a champion of writers, of stories yet to be told, and of time.’

Jes Layton, co-CEO of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, says, ‘It is the immense privilege of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, represented by both myself and Jess Zanoni, EWF’s Artistic Director and my co-CEO, to administer the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers once again in 2025. Playing such a unique role in an up-and-coming writer’s journey is always heartening, only more incredibly so when the calibre, quality and bravery of such writers only grows year on year. All our congratulations to Monique Ivankovič Marani for her winning entry The Sweeter: in an incredibly difficult-to-narrow-down shortlist! I hope that the opportunity not just for recognition but for development offered by Hachette Australia and the Richell family does incredible work to help you continue your bright literary future.’

Joel Naoum, Hachette Australia Publishing Director, says, ‘Monique’s manuscript exemplifies what the Richell Prize was established to recognise – a distinctive new voice with something powerful to say and the craft to say it. The Sweeter is an extraordinary piece of writing – daring, atmospheric and emotionally intelligent. It captures both the intimacy and unease of coming of age amid displacement and trauma, expressed through prose that is precise, lyrical and assured. We are delighted to support Monique through the Richell Prize mentorship and to see where this remarkable talent will go next.’

This year, the Richell Prize received 775 entries. Each submission was read by two initial readers before being read by the judging panel, which consisted of Nea Close-Brown (Editor, Community Publishing, Indigenous Literacy Foundation), Kate Mayor (Head of Book Buying, Dymocks), Sally Tabner (BookPeople Bookseller of the Year and owner of Bookoccino), bestselling author Hannah Richell and Vanessa Radnidge (Hachette Australia Head of Non-Fiction and Literary). After closely reviewing the longlist, the judges, chaired by Joel Naoum, Hachette Australia Publishing Director, met to discuss and assess the strengths of each work. From there, five writers were shortlisted, and the judging panel ultimately selected The Sweeter as the winner.